Suck on These Beads Baby! Teething Necklace Tutorial

                     

  Knotted Nursing and Teething Necklace

 

Every so often I see a mom wearing a big ole chunky necklace that a wee babe in her arms is playing with and chewing on. Sometimes they are silicone beads, sometimes wood beads, and sometimes cloth covered beads of some sort.

 

I wanted some of those necklaces! My little hulk baby Master Bruce isn't a passive infant anymore. At 4 months he is Eyes Wide Open to the world. Those little hands grab (and yank!) at everything, and now that he's making some signs of teething (already?) much of that is going straight to his mouth. So without further ado, here is my version of the Knotted Nursing and Teething Necklace.

 

I started with a strip of fabric that I liked.. about 45" long and 5" wide. I found a coordinating ribbon from my stash. Then I took a trip out to JoAnn Fabrics and found these untreated 1" wooden beads. This shape is actually called 'wheels' and I chose it because it seemed like an interesting textured shape.
 

Then I ironed the fabric in half right sides together, lengthwise. Stuck one of my beads in and marked it's width. I then sewed it into a tube at that measurement and trimmed away the excess

I then turned my tube right side out. I happen to have a handy little tube turner tool but you can feed a length of ribbon down on a safety pin if you don't have one.

Then I started sticking in beads. I knotted it at about the middle point and put 4 on each side with another knot in between and ending with a knot.

I got my shiny brown ribbon and stuck it in the open ends of the tube and sewed it shut. My fabric happened to be cut selvedge to selvedge but if yours isn't you just tuck the end of the tube in to finish the edge.

 

Then I cut the ribbon at it's center and did a lighter melt to then ends. Ribbon like this is usually a synthetic and if you 'melt' the ends with a brief pass of flame it finishes the cut fibers.

 

 And there you have it! As you can see they look really hot over my modern NKOTB t-shirt my dress form wears.. and the slobbering Master Bruce loves them too!

The End